This wide-ranging study reviews the state of public health worldwide and presents informed recommendations for real-world solutions. Identifying the most urgent challenges in the field, from better understanding the causes of acute diseases and chronic conditions to reducing health inequities, it reports on cost-effective, science-based, ethically sound interventions. Chapters demonstrate bedrock skills essential to developing best practices, including flexible thinking for entrenched problems, conducting health impact assessments, and working with decision-makers. From these current findings come long-term practice and policy goals for preventing disease, promoting health, and improving quality of life, both locally and globally. A sampling of the topics covered: ·         Health trends of communicable diseases.·         Epidemiology of cancer and principles of prevention.·         Respiratory diseases and health disorders related to indoor and outdoor air pollution.·         Public health gerontology and active aging.·         Migrant and ethnic minority health.·         Public health genomics. A Systematic Review of Key Issues in Public Health offers graduate students in the discipline a firm grasp on the field as it presently stands, and a clear set of directions for its potential future.